Thoughts of Darkest Night
by Alyna-Silverstorm
Summary: Perceptions, Deceptions, Illusions of Truth - Inside the mind of Lex Luthor


Thankyouthankyouthankyou to my sizzy Francie for all her wonderful wonderful help as betareader… *big huggles*  
  
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I don't own any of the characters from Smallville… which means – sadly – that Lex ain't actually mine…  
  
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Stares. Stares and hatred. Disdain, dislike, distrust. When people look at me, what do they see? It's the first thing they notice, every time. It marks me, wherever I go. It's my identity, the thing they associate with me. Even if they don't already know who I am, who my father is, it still makes me stand out.  
  
Freak. Freak they call me, regardless of the 'respectability', the power of money, even when they don't say it aloud, even when it's only a message in their eyes. I stand out, whatever I do. When they know who I am, who my family is, who my father is, it justifies it to them. Beauty is only skin deep, yet ours is a superficial world, and they believe that evil should leave some sign that you know it for what it is.  
  
Evil. Am I evil? I am unique, that is obvious. It is always obvious, because the stares, the whispers, are always there. Evil people are always unique, but unique people aren't always evil, and I don't want to be evil. Does anyone? Or do I? Evil depends on perception, does it not? What I want is to be great, but perhaps being evil is a part of being great. A conqueror, while Great to his own people, is Evil to those he conquers. Is that not how it works? Adolf Hitler was evil, was he not? And yet, perversely, he was a great man. His people believed in him, followed him, despite the destruction and the denouncement. Greatness does not confer universal popularity. Maybe being evil is the price of being great? And yet, still I want to be great.  
  
Great. What is it that defines greatness? How can one achieve it? What is it about a person that they continually strive to better themselves, and become great, while thousands around them fail? Why? How? Once there was a man, a great man, a prince who rose from relative obscurity as a descendant of gods and heroes to become an emperor and a god himself, a man immortalised in history, a man whose name I share.  
  
Alexander. People call me Luthor, heartless and evil. People call him Great, brilliant and inspiring. But one day, I will be Great, I will be Great as none before me have been Great. Alexander conquered a fallen empire with an army a merest fraction of the size of his opponents'. He changed the fabric of his world, redrew the patterns and left an indelible mark. Fighter, leader, king, hero, god. Great by name, great by nature, generous and fiery, giving up was not an option.  
  
But. There's always a but, isn't there? Alexander the Devil he is also called, by those he conquered. Does that mean he was evil? Perceptions, perceptions are the key to evil. And he failed. He died before he could fulfil his potential. Does that mean he was not great? Because it all fell apart. His empire died with him. Strength he had, strength of arm, strength of wit, and strength of will... and yet he didn't. There was no one person to follow him, to inherit and continue to build. Is that my father's lesson? That the most essential part of empire building is to plan for a future without you in it, to create and shape an heir, someone to continue your work when you are dead and gone. Perhaps it is. Perhaps that is what he intended. Yet he seems to have forgotten something, overlooked an essential fact - that the necessary strength and purpose for an emperor does not lend itself well to containment in the heir. I am constrained, stifled, continually twisted back to the shape he wishes for me. I need to stretch my wings and fly, but he is always in the way. Unhand me, free me, loose my chains and let me fly.  
  
Freedom. Something I have never really known. Will I ever truly taste it, drink deeply of it's heady nectar, this precious gift that is an American Right? I look at Chloe and I see a girl who is free to speak her mind. She says what she thinks. Ask her opinion and you'll freely get her opinion, regardless of controversy. Don't ask her opinion and she may well give it to you anyway, regardless of opposition. I look at Lana and see a girl who was once bound to a stereotype but chose to break her chains, to be free of those preconceptions. She is free to form her life to the way she wants it, to conform or not as she desires. I look at Clark and I see a boy who is free to feel what he wants. He cares, not because he has to, but because he wants to. He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, freely chose that burden because he wants to help, because he cares.  
  
Lies. Is freedom ever anything more than illusion? Chloe speaks her mind and ignores the consequences to herself. But what if it affected her father? If I threatened her father, his job, their security, what would she do? Would she still be free? Lana strives to escape the prison of her stereotype, but in the end, has anything changed? Is she free of those chains, or has she merely exchanged one cage for another? Is she no longer the 'lovely, popular cheerleader dating the handsome football stud' because she's free? Or has she merely switched prisons to instead become the 'lovely, popular rebel-who-wants-better, who'll stand by her man no matter what'? And Clark. Is he free to choose to care if the ones he cares about drive him away, don't want him to, don't deserve him to? Is he free to care if the one he loves can't love him back because she's committed to another? Is he free to choose if everyone tells him he is wrong? Is freedom, any freedom, truly real, or nothing more than an elaborate illusion, a lie?  
  
Control. Control is the key. Perceptions, deceptions, illusions of truth. The world is as we see it, but one man alone does not, CAN not, shape his own world, for the world is shaped by everyone. People look at me, see my baldness despite my youth, and I am marked. A Luthor I am, alone, separated by my uniqueness, the uniqueness I wear as a badge of honour to hide my pain. Control is all important. The Lex they see is not the one I see. It is a facade, an act, a lie... but for how long? They see what they expect to see, and in doing so they shape my world. I claim control, my father claims control, but in the end, it is they who control us.  
  
They. Who are they? It is the nebulous, undefined they... a group of people that does not exist, and yet is real. Another illusion.They speak the opinions of the world with the voice and wisdom of the collective majority. A living paradox, a contradiction of always there and never there. Intangible, untouchable, inescapable. How can you flee the influence of they who are everywhere and nowhere?  
  
Dreams. They sustain me through this nightmare, where no thing, no one, no where is safe. Can anyone wake me? Will anyone want to? One maybe - Clark Kent. He pulled me from the river, from death, from the fiery pits of hell. He remade me, renewed me, brought back the dreams. But the game, the pretending, the lies have gone on so long I don't know which is the real me anymore. What will I become if I don't know what I was? How can a shadow, a fiction, an illusion ever hope to become Great? Uncertainty will kill the dreams again as surely as the death of hope, for how can a dream grow and blossom in such shaky, unstable ground? I dream of greatness, I yearn for greatness, I am trapped by the paradox of greatness - in order to become great, I need help, yet if I accept help, how can I be great? My dreams don't show me this. They show me as a ruler, an inspiration, a Power unrivalled... a Power untouched, friendless, alone.  
  
Alone. My dreams turn to ice, to lonely plains where mournful winds howl, to streams of fire that separate me from the world. So alone. One and one only do I claim as friend, and even so I do not trust him. He does not know my secrets, he can't know my secrets. I can't share them. But if I can't trust him, how can he be my friend? And yet, I do not think he trusts me with his secrets either, but he calls me friend.  
  
Friend. It is a craving, a need so strong it will consume me. But I must be controlled. Control is how I have been taught. Luthors must always be controlled, must always be in control. This craving must be controlled... or destroyed. But if I don't need a friend, don't have a friend... I will be alone again. Must I be alone? No. Not while Clark is there. But he won't always be there, will he? Someday, he will give up, he will begin to believe the all-seeing, all-knowing them. And then he will hate me, he will despise me and fear me. And so, he will desert me, or become a leech instead of a friend. I can't stand it, knowing this. But everyone changes, everything changes. It hurts to know I must say goodbye to you Clark, you who taught me the value of friendship. Deny it for an eternity, yet the fact remains that this warmth and feeling you have gifted to me will not last forever. For now, I will trust you as much as I can, I will trust you to do everything in your power to save me, I will trust you to always be there when I need you. But I prepare myself for the time when you leave, as you will. I know you will. Everyone does in the end. I lose them all, to death or to chaos, raw change.  
  
So. Am I evil? Perhaps. Do I still care? I'm not sure. Maybe the cost of greatness is too high... but Clark, it was my father who taught me never to give up, but it was you who made me believe. So what does it mean? I don't know. Perhaps some day you'll teach me that too. Teach me to find the path to greatness that you find so easy to walk. Walk? No, someone like you would never walk the path of greatness. No, you'd fly, fly on angel's wings, on the strength of your compassion and the courage of your heart. And leave me to walk as best as I can, alone, treading darker paths in my search for my desires. And maybe someday I will prove to the world, to the doubting they, what I already know - that I am worthy of my namesake. I will defeat him, for Luthors always triumph... even if Luthor is just another word for loneliness. 


End file.
